Abstract:In May of 2019 Governor Jared Polis announced Colorado

would be Carbon Neutral by 2040. This is an effort by the

state government to drive innovation and reduce costs to

consumers while also leading in the transition to clean

energy. This will help reduce air pollution and curtail the

effects of climate change. As of a massive undertaking, the

most complicated part of this plan will be to identify the

energy sources of the state’s electricity. In 2019 the state

produced 29.7 trillion kWh of energy and only 3.3 trillion

kWh were made from renewable sources. This deficit means

there is lots of room for growth in the renewables sector to

meet the increasing energy demands of the state. This project

aims to identify suitable locations for wind farms and solar

fields in northern Colorado. Using Census data, average air

windspeed data, and land use data this project will not only

examine potential sites that are available in northern

Colorado for renewable energy generation, but also explore

unmet energy demand among the populations in the region.

Dasymetric mapping techniques will be applied to the

relevant data to generate geovisualized locations of the

potential sites, and feasibility assessment.

Cody Yager, Geography, GIS, and Sustainability

Faculty Sponsor: Dr. Jieun LeeResearch Day 2021

Winds of Change: How Wind and Solar Will Affect the Front Range

Methods:

❖Land use map is used to separate public and private land

and to limit where turbines and solar panels can be placed.

❖Created a slope map to determine gradient. Wind turbines

cannot be built on a steeper than 10% slope. Solar panels

can but are optimal on more level surfaces.

❖Created map of obstructions that would prevent Turbine or

solar panel placement. This was narrowed down to roads

and highways, lakes and streams, and airports.

❖Created a wind class map which generalizes wind into

categories.

❖Converted all maps to rasters.

❖Separated into binary, 1 for good land, and 0 for bad land.

❖Calculated land types with raster calculator.

❖Converted back to polygons.

❖Created grids for solar and wind based on land use needs.

Solar is 14.5 million meters² and wind is 33 million m².

❖ Picked locations based on proximity to urban centers

Research Question

What are the land use requirements for Wind and Solar energy?

Study Area:

The area of study is along Colorado’s northern front range.

The area includes Jackson County, Grand County, Larimer

County, Boulder County, Weld County, and Morgan County.

The reasons for choosing this area are it is large enough to

find several good sites, the area has varying topography,

population in some areas is dense but sparse in others, the

land types that will be required for the sites are found within

these areas, and by only using a few counties it will be easier

to replicate in the future.

References:National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL)

Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT)

U.S. Census Bureau

Colorado Ownership, Management and Protection service (COMaP)

National Map

Conclusion:

The results of this study were more than anticipated. While

the areas found are not guaranteed sites for wind and solar

fields, they are great examples of future potential sites. With

all the restrictions in place there were still plenty of potential

sites for wind and solar to choose from. The largest restriction

for wind was the land use, while the largest restriction for

solar was total size. Overall, 6 sites in total were found for

wind each site capable of generating 2.3 Trillion kWh of

energy and 3 sites of solar were found capable of generating

1.2 Trillion kWh of energy. These numbers can be increased

without changing the land size use by moving to more

efficient energy collectors. The wind turbines chosen for the

project were 2MW platform these are what is most common

today, but the new wind turbines being made currently are

capable of two to three times that with only a small increase

in overall size. So, adapting the wind sits to a larger 150m

wingspan from the 110m/136m decreases the number of

turbines in the area to around 150,000 from the 220,000.

However, the overall output of the site goes from 2.3 Trillion

kWh to over 3.5 Trillion kWh.